Dal dramma del destino alla commedia dei sentimenti: la metamorfosi teatrale della Proserpina di Goethe

By including the monodrama "Proserpina" as a play in the satirical comedy "The Triumph of Sensibility" (1778) Goethe downplays the dramatic immediacy of this mythological figure. The Sturm und Drang drama of ineluctable individual destiny is thus depowered, but in return the myth is reactivated in its paradigmatic nature. In "The Triumph", Proserpina’s desperation is relativized, as an episode of sentimental life that can assign new roles to its actors – in this case, to Queen Mandandane, who in the guise of Proserpina stages her own erotic frustration. The metatheatrical recodification of the monodrama, which reactivates the metamorphic potential of the mythological figure, contains within itself not only the resolution of the check to which Sturm und Drang poetics had reached with "Werther", but also the unlocking of the statuesque iconicity of Goethian classicism.